


The five times Ianto told Jack he loved him and the one time Jack said it back

by revengeandotherdrugs



Category: Torchwood
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Clothing Kink, First Time, M/M, Sad Ianto Jones, again sorry, kind of, not really - Freeform, okay maybe a little, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-18
Updated: 2014-05-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 15:09:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1652996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revengeandotherdrugs/pseuds/revengeandotherdrugs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The four times Jack couldn't bring himself to answer and the one time he did... too late.<br/>!CONTAINS SPOILERS!</p>
            </blockquote>





	The five times Ianto told Jack he loved him and the one time Jack said it back

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blairecray](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blairecray/gifts).



> too much angsty Janto running rampant in my head so this happened... (sorry Claire, there will be a beret fic in your inbox soon I just had to get the feels out of my system.)
> 
> its been forever since I watched Torchwood so any problems with canon are not for lack of trying.   
> kudos and comments are welcome and appreciated as is whatever concrit you have to throw at me, I'm still learning xD   
> Enjoy and pardon my comma addiction... I'm getting help for it, promise.

The first time he says it it’s unintentional, convoluted and wrong. He’s tired, he’s upset and he loves this infuriatingly gorgeous man in a strange, painful way; so intense and sudden he can’t hold himself back.

 “I really love the coat”

What he means is _“I really love you”_

The coat is Jack, almost an extension of his being; fierce and weird and beautiful, a thing out of time….the essence of Jack. Ianto doesn’t love the coat; he loves the man who wears it.

There’s no answer.

Ianto tosses the full coffee cup into the bay without a second thought.

***

 

The second time is three weeks after Lisa. He’s delirious and violent and he feels like he is being torn apart from the inside; like a monster is clawing its way through his heart.

Its late. He stands in the doorway to Jack’s office, hands balled in fists, screams fighting their way up his throat…

“I love you”

He was hoping for a punch, for a kiss, for a look, for shouting… anything that might begin to fill up this festering Lisa-sized hole in his chest that threatens to consume him entirely.

“Jack…”

Was he trying to take it back? To repeat it?

He slams the door and walks home, the empty streets littered with garbage and slick with rainwater.  He lies awake, the headlights and shadows that pass over the walls of his bedroom reminding him of Jack’s eyes.

***

The third time it’s a mistake, almost blameless, but he still counts it as one.

There’d been drinks, they’d been celebrating a job well done like normal people. Like it was a successful project finished instead of the world saved, again. Everyone had gone home, the first rays of the early sun is just beginning to pink the edges of the sky. 

He is tidying, putting away cups and washing away the sticky rings left by scotch and cocktails on various surfaces.  Jack had gone to bed so he figures he’s alone.  _Its enough_ he tells himself, shaking away thoughts of Jack alone in his bed, _its enough to be near him._

It isn’t, not really.

He finishes and sits at the table with the bottle of Bell’s staring at nothing and trying to wish away the thoughts from his head, his eyes tracing blindly over the patterns in the woodgrain. It’s quiet and still. His mouth tastes of alcohol and his mind feels like a cage.  It’s long minutes before he lifts his head.

“Couldn’t sleep” Jack says, stepping out from the shadow of the wall. Ianto tries to wonder how long he’d been standing there but finds that he doesn’t really care.

Jack is bare to the waist, the muted light from the one lamp over the table casting shadows and plains of light across well defined muscles. His face is clouded with the type of open pain that the pre-dawn reveals in all of us. It had stripped away the mask of cheerful competence and left only the damaged soul.

He looks more out of his time than ever, the lamplight casting him in sepia tones like an old photograph, forgotten and out of place.

Unspeakable words rise to Ianto’s throat, crowding up tight against his wind-pipe and making it difficult to breathe.

Nothing is said for a moment and the quiet hangs between them.

Ianto goes to open his mouth, more to break the silence than because he has anything to say but Jack beats him to it.

“come to bed Ianto”

.

They barely make it to the bed. Jack’s hands scrabbling at Ianto’s clothes, tearing buttons from his shirt and flinging the offending thing across the small cell. He pushes Ianto to the bed, kissing at his lips and neck and anywhere he can reach, his hands undoing the buttons on Ianto’s trousers.

In all the other times Ianto’s done this there has never been this heat. Every hastily pressed kiss and suck against his bare skin sees him burning for more for _Jack_ for more feeling; it devours the marrow from Ianto’s bones and leaves him gasping Jack’s name and aching for him like air.

Jack tastes like cloves and good scotch Ianto discovers, taking Jack’s exhale as his inhale on each breath and exploring the burning velvet of his mouth. Jack’s hands scrape his back, feeling the divots of spine with fingertips and the flutter of lungs hidden under flesh and bone. Jack takes the globes of his ass like offerings, squeezing the flesh between his palms, exposing Ianto in the most intimate way and reducing him to a being held together purely by fire and lust.  He cries out at the twist of Jack’s slick fingers inside of him, burning up at the slow suck of flame against his collarbone and keening at the loss as the fingers pull away.

He is a mess of _wantneednowpleasepleaseplease_ his fingers pulling at the muscles of Jack’s shoulders as Jack bottoms out inside of him. Then there is the hot pull, the pressure and the drag against his insides as Jack pulls out of him again.

Jack sets a punishing pace, the fire roars in Ianto’s ears an endless rush of burning pleasure-pain and the all-consuming _wantneedpleasepleaseplease_. The bed shakes with the force of them combined, Ianto’s shrieks and moans and little gasps echoing around the metal walls of the cell coupled with Jack’s ever louder grunts and sighs.

Ianto comes with a scream; the fire stoked to white-heat burns him from the inside out. It sears behind his eyelids and rattles in his bones as he coats his stomach and Jack’s chest with thick ropes of white.

Jack stills with his release, a low groan that settles deep in Ianto’s chest as he spends himself deep inside the molten-silk softness of Ianto’s passage.

They stay still, panting; slowly coming back to themselves.

Jack looks like an angel above him, his eyes closed and his lips, kiss-chapped and bitten red as if stained with the juice of some forbidden fruit, partly open as if in prayer. Ianto, sated and delirious can’t keep the words away.

“Jack Jack Jack… I love you…”

It comes out on a sigh, a soft release as Jack pulls himself out. If he hears he doesn’t react, just cleans them up with a warm, sleepy efficiency and then pulls Ianto to his chest.

They sleep like that, wrapped around each other and when Ianto wakes hours later and whispers the words again, lips pressed against the smooth skin over Jack’s heart no one hears.

***

 

The fourth time is the coat again. That piece of fabric that is as much Jack as Jack is balled up in shaking fists, fingers twining in the rough fabric, so empty without a body underneath. He feels like crying but he doesn’t, he swallows the tears instead and presses his face to the fabric, inhaling cloves and chemicals and ozone and _Jack_.

Its not quite pain he feels, just a searing ache under his ribs that pounds against the bones and makes everything too heavy, too much to bear. It’s almost worse now, now that he’s had his taste; his addiction born from soft caresses and stolen kisses and fire in the dark… he can barely breathe without Jack by his side. It’s a stupid thing to think,  he’s been alone before, but never like this. never once so bitterly lost.

He resents himself for feeling like that but the self hatred and internalized rage only causes him to grip the coat tighter; its his life-raft against currents that threaten to tear him apart.

Perfectly organized Ianto Jones, undone by the last light in his life going out.

“I love you” pressed out loud against the fabric, like one might use a rosary in prayer. And then softer, “come back to me”

He hangs the coat up on its accustomed hook and faces the rest of the day as usual, masked and ingenuine, gritting his teeth and holding himself together so the rest of the team might be able to fall apart and use him as an anchor. It’s what he does best, being organized in times of crisis, staying level, feigning strong.

He returns to the office at night though, gingerly removing the coat from its hook and wrapping it around himself. It’s too large in the shoulders and it smells of Jack.

He curls up on Jack’s bed, now more familiar than his own and tries to sleep. The coat keeps him warm, the ghost of Jack holding him, without form.

_It’ll be okay it’ll be okay_

He doesn’t swallow the tears this time, he’s alone, and there is no one to hear him in the dark.

He doesn’t sleep and in the morning when the others report for work the coat is back in the office like it had never left, everything is in its place and there are four cups of fresh coffee out on the table, waiting for the team to start the day.

***

 

The fifth time, and the first time, it’s over.  He can feel himself shutting down, cell by cell, he’s dying and he knows it. Jack catches him when he falls, cradling him to his chest and stroking the hair off his face as he fights for breath.

"No! No, no, no, no, no. No! Ianto. No. - It's all my fault."   


"No it's not..."  


"Don't speak, save your breath."  


"I love you, I..." the fifth time passes on a labored gasp, unfinished. Jack’s eyes are over bright with tears Ianto knows he’ll never see fall.  


"Don't. Ianto. Ianto. Ianto, stay with me, Ianto, stay with me, please. Stay with me, stay with me, please, please."  


"Hey, it was...good, yeah?" he needs to know that he made some sort of difference, that he did something right.  


"Yeah."  


"Don´t forget me." It’s the worst thing he can imagine, being forgotten. Jack has always been the one to remember him but that won’t last

"Never could."

_You will_ _you will forget. Everyone forgets_

"A thousand years time, you won't remember me."

_you_ _will forget me and move on._

"Yes, I will. I promise, I will."

_And that’s the only thing I have left to ask of you… move on, but don’t forget me. Please Jack…_

He’s fading in and out, Jack’s face bleeding in and out of focus like paint on wet paper. He grasps at the last glimpse of Jack’s face with everything he has. He wants to hold on to this as long as he can; to bring the only light he’s ever known into the darkness with him.

“Ianto, Ianto don’t go… don’t leave me…”

He can vaguely hear Jack’s voice through the layers of black and he reaches for it with the last of himself, curling it into what little remains of Ianto Jones and holding it tightly.

With the last of himself he feels the kiss, the three whispered words against his lips, caught with his last breath.

It is enough, it is more than enough, it is everything.

And then there is nothing.


End file.
